


Crazy Our Survival

by sydkn3e



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant Violence, Feels, Kissing, M/M, Purgatory, Supernatural 15x08 coda, but only just enough, dumbasses finally talking to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sydkn3e/pseuds/sydkn3e
Summary: Dean and Cas venture into Purgatory after the exclusive Leviathan blossom. Things are said. Turns out they're in love. Who knew?!This is the first coda I've written in a while, post 15x08 "Our Father, Who Aren't in Heaven", where I make Dean and Cas tell each other some of the things I've been screaming about for YEARS.Just let them talk to each other, for fuck's sake!Enjoy.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 84





	Crazy Our Survival

**Author's Note:**

> I hope yall enjoy and as always, I don't edit because I HATESSS it. It's my birthday today so happy birthday to all of you, enjoy some minimal gay with maximum sadness. :D

Since the day they’d discovered Chuck’s true intentions, Dean knew this day would come.

It made sense in the respect that Chuck was God, and therefore all-knowing, and therefore he would eventually use the things they cared about the most against them. It was only a matter of time. 

Dean spent so long being so careful. Long before they knew about Chuck, or God, or whatever. Back when things were simple; just the three of them, working cases, fighting monsters, saving people. But then he was careful because they lost everyone. Then, he was careful because he couldn’t afford the liability of caring about someone else as much as he did Sammy. He was careful because he’d felt that feeling before, goddammit, and it was the kind of thing that would get you killed in their line of work. 

But then Sammy got Eileen back; someone in the life, someone who could take the punches and keep getting up. She’d come back from the _dead_ \- a Winchester rite of passage, in his book- and damned if it hadn’t been the happiest he’d seen Sam in _years._ And the crazy thing was that all of it worked, the three of them hunting together, watching each others’ backs...but all Dean could think about was Cas. How Cas should be there with them. Wondering where the hell he was, if the dumb son of a bitch was okay, how many days it’d take to get to him if he was in Michigan, Texas, Wyoming...he’d worked them all out in his head.

And that was where he’d gone wrong, wasn’t it? He’d given Chuck the real glimpse he needed to cut right to the heart of their story. He’d reminded him of the end he hadn’t yet wrapped up in an agonizing little bow. 

Somehow, Dean knew what Michael would say before he even said it. He’d known they’d end up back in Purgatory. Back where it all really began, officially, he supposed. Michael even smirked a little, like he knew all about it. He probably did. Demons were notorious gossipers. 

_A Leviathan blossom._ Yeah, Chuck was personally fucking with them now. 

He looked back at Cas and they shared a knowing look. Cas pressed his lips together and nodded.

_It’s okay._

But it wasn’t fucking okay, because this part was _his fault_ , _his_ weakness, his stupid fucking brain giving Chuck all the ammunition he needed to destroy everything he loved. Chuck knew exactly what things would hurt Dean the most, and he was using them against him.

It was just the way Cain had said, all those years before. The way it was written. First his friend, then his lover, then his brother.

Leo was dead. And Cas...Cas would be next.

And then...

His throat was dry but he didn’t look back as he stepped through the portal. Cas was there.

He was always there.

\----

“Dean.”

“I feel like we’ve seen this before. Are we goin’ in circles? We’ve seen this before-”

“Dean-”

“Cas, could you shut up a second?” 

“We’ve been walking for hours, killed three vampires and one leviathan, you’re bleeding and it’s getting dark, and...oh! You’ve yet to say one single word to _me._ ”

Dean stopped hard and spun on his heel, setting his jaw. “What do you want me to say, Cas? ‘Oh, nice night we’re havin’? I don’t care where we are, long as it’s together?’”

Cas narrowed his eyes, rotating his jaw forward.

Dean gritted his teeth and shot him another glare before turning and starting again. Leaves crunching. Branches snapping. He could feel Cas close behind him.

“You heard her.”

Dean ducked under a cluster of thick branches. “Who?”

“Rowena.”

Dean scoffed. “We don’t have time for this.”

“We could very well die here.”

“Yeah, and what else is new? We almost die every day.”

“You know this time is different. Dean-” Cas grabbed his arm and pulled, yanking him back, holding him in place. “I didn’t...I’m sorry about Mary. If I’d had any idea, Dean, any idea what Jack would do-”

“You did.”

“I was supposed to know he’d kill Mary because he killed a snake?”

Dean closed his eyes and turned his head. Cas sighed, relaxing his grip only slightly. 

“I understand you’re angry. And if you need to be angry at me, that’s okay. I’m angry too. I’m angry at Michael, at Chuck…” he huffed a laugh, shaking his head, eyes downcast. “At myself. It’s only right I be sent to the place I served my own penance once before.”

“That’s not-” Dean couldn’t bring himself to say it. Couldn’t tell Cas that wasn’t the reason they were there, together, back in Purgatory, looking for a fucking _flower_ in the very part of that hell where it happened...the first time he’d felt for Cas in a way he couldn’t unfeel. The fear that gripped him when Cas was thrown to the ground by a Leviathan, all teeth, lunging for his throat. How helpless he felt as he struggled to fight off his own, unable to get there in time, forced to watch. The firm beating of his heart when Benny saved him and pulled him to his feet.

Cas was scruffy and dirty and gasping and Dean’s heart was in his throat. _Holy fuck I love him._

But he couldn’t talk about it now, couldn’t think of it. _Wouldn’t_ think of it. It was just weakness now.

Cas was still waiting for him to speak. Dean rolled his eyes and shrugged him off. 

“C’mon.”

“Dean-”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Yeah, you never have time.”

Dean whipped around and grabbed Cas’s collar, just holding him there, grip tight, forearm stiff. Cas didn’t react.

Dean swallowed, glancing quickly around them. “One of us _is_ gonna die here, Cas.”

“I know.”

Dean nodded and closed his eyes. Of course he knew. They both did. But _knowing_ it and _saying_ it weren’t at all the same, and especially so in their case. 

“And Eileen-”

“He’ll come for her next,” Cas confirmed, nodding slowly.

Dean sighed. His eyes burned. “Doesn’t matter what we say. Chuck’s already written it.”

“We still have free will, Dean-”

“Do we?!”

Cas furrowed his brow and cocked his head to the side. He reached up, wrapping a hand around Dean's wrist.

“You think Chuck wrote this?” he asked, a little disbelievingly, whispered for just the two of them. “Dean, I can assure you...Chuck didn’t write this. No matter how many different ways he wrote it...none of them were meant to lead to this. Yet they did, in spite of him. It was a constant, through all timelines. Through all universes.”

Dean’s vision blurred; he blinked.

“Dean,” Cas continued, dropping his hand. “They’ve been using it against us the whole time. Everything with Naomi, before...last time we escaped from here. When she worked to brainwash me. I never told you what she did. I never told you...what I had to do.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“She had me kill you. Hundreds of you. Thousands of you. I had to kill you, over and over and over again, until I couldn’t feel anything anymore.”

“Stop.”

“Chuck has been punishing me since the beginning. Although I…” he looked around, “I’m not sure, of all the hells I’ve been through, why he chose this one. Naomi’s hell was much, much worse.”

“It’s where I-” Dean swallowed hard, tears welling in his eyes again until he blinked them away.

Cas’s mouth formed a small “o” and he pressed his lips together again. He frowned. “Here?”

Dean nodded. They started to walk again, another few minutes in silence, before Dean spoke.

“Cas, I-”

“Before you say anything else,” Cas interrupted, casting him a serious look, “there’s something you have to know. Something else I should have told you.” He swallowed, cleared his throat. “When I went to Heaven, when I found Jack… the Empty found us. It wanted to take Jack, claim him for his angel side. I stopped it.”

Dean stopped walking. Branches snapped several yards away, and he pushed Cas behind a bundle of brush, quickly crouching down beside him. Their breaths were shallow, shoulders brushing, the heat of Cas’s thigh against his. A creature passed only feet from them, sniffing the air, thankfully upwind of them. 

Cas grabbed his wrist as Dean moved to stand, his grip tight. Dean looked down, breathed in, out again. Looked back up at Cas.

“How?”

Cas looked back at him. His mouth quirked slightly in the corner, gone as soon as it’d come. “I proposed a trade.”

“What does that mean?”

Cas sighed and stood slowly, releasing Dean’s wrist. “I offered myself in his place.”

“Cas, you fuck-”

“It accepted, of course.”

Dean paused, frowned. Wheels turned, Cas’s face softened, and the pit in Dean’s stomach rose and evolved into a lump in his throat. 

“How are you still here, then, Cas?”

“It’s...waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“My happiness.”

Dean almost laughed, but the realization hit him before he had the chance. “You can’t...you can’t say it either.”

“No. Although, one might argue that the voicing is less important than the actual feeling.”

Dean chewed his lip. “Amara. She...she knew. She used you to get to me. Used you to make me come for her.”

“Yes.”

Dean looked down, his eyes unfocused as his mind raced.

“Since the beginning, I defied orders for you. I risked my existence for one human, because you inexplicably had this hold over me, and I couldn’t stand to see you hurt or upset, and suddenly instead of concern with disappointing my father, I was afraid to disappoint _you._ It changed the course of my fate. I was no longer beholden to the story Chuck wrote for me. I was beholden to _you._ ” Cas met his eyes. “So many things were changed because of us, Dean.”

“You...weren’t supposed to-”

“I wasn’t supposed to do a lot of things, Dean. But here we are, and it’s because I love you.”

“Cas-”

“And you love me. And that’s it.”

Dean opened and closed his mouth, and again, then pressed his lips and knit and eyebrows together tightly. He spun on his heel and took off the direction they were originally headed, fists clenched at his sides.

“Dean.”

“Don’t.”

“It’s done. So how are you going to handle it? Will you leave this place feeling good about our last moments together?”

“Stop-”

“Or will you waste them?”

Dean spun quickly again and launched himself into Cas, firmly grasping the lapels of his trench coat, and pressed their lips together hard, knocking teeth, pulling him desperately closer. Cas moved with him, and for a few solid seconds they were all tongues and teeth, raw, pure, needy. The stripped-down versions of themselves, the ones they’d become all those years before in this place; the feral, instinct-driven beings Purgatory created. 

Purgatory gave him a sort of hunger for Cas he’d never felt before. An artful lust, where Dean thinks perhaps for the first time he may have taken part in what Cas called “a bonding of souls”. 

That is, assuming Cas had a soul, which he continually insisted he did not. 

Regardless, Cas was kissing him back with the same fervor that stirred Dean into it, and soon they’d stumbled back, Cas grunting lowly as the air was punched out of him when his back hit the firm trunk of a tree. His hands eventually came up, too, holding Dean around his collar, but instead of what should have come next, Cas pushed him away, hands still buried in his flannel.

“You have to leave me this time. Willingly. I won’t return, but it’s better than spending the rest of my existence...or _non-existence_ , I guess I should say, forever asleep in the Empty.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “You know I can’t do that, Cas.”

“You must. It’s the only way.”

“He’s just...just testin’ me,” Dean muttered. “That’s all. He’s fuckin’ with us. He knows this is...this place...it’s important to me. You know that. You know him. He wants you to die here, he _expects_ you to die here. But he doesn’t get to make that choice, Cas. _You_ do. You’ve never done what you were supposed to, not in Heaven’s eyes. Don’t you dare try to go out any differently.”

“I love you,” Cas said, as if it was the next logical thing to say. But he seemed so sure of it, Dean didn’t argue.

There was more rustling in the distance and they fell quiet. After moments of rigid silence, Cas relaxed again, sighing softly. 

“Let’s go. We’re almost there.”

“We aren’t done talking,” Dean shot back, but Cas was already up and moving again. Dean scrambled after him, gripping his knife at his side, scanning his peripherals. “You can’t just...walk away because you think the conversation is over.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it is.” Cas stopped and frowned as he looked back and forth, eventually setting off again toward the right. Branches snapped underfoot, the air was thick with fog, monsters snarled in the distance, but Cas had tunnel vision. 

“I can’t leave you here,” Dean whispered. “I won’t.”

“You will.”

“I can’t leave you here not knowing what’ll happen to you!”

Cas spun on his heel. “So you’ll take me back, knowing what will?”

Dean faltered, mouth opening and closing again. “I’ll...I’ll talk to Billie. Me and Sam. Maybe she wants to take Chuck out just as bad as all of us. He’s messin’ with the natural order of things now. Freein’ hell souls, waking the dead. Maybe-”

“The Empty is beholden to no one,” Cas said dryly. “Not Billie, not God. Even if you could get to Billie before the Empty came, there would be nothing she could do to stop it.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Dean-”

“What did you expect, Cas?!” Dean said finally, a little louder than he intended. Loud enough that Cas snapped his own mouth closed. “For me to just accept it and move on? When have you ever known me to do that?”

Cas stared at him for a solid few seconds before the corner of his lips finally quirked, and his eyes softened. “Never.”

“There’s always another way,” Dean said, giving Cas the cockiest smile he could muster through the fearful fluttering of his heart. 

Cas huffed a laugh and started to walk again. “We’re nearly there. We need to get the blossom and get back to the portal, quickly. The longer we’re here, the more likely the Leviathans will pinpoint our location. We have to keep moving.”

They finally located the fields and Cas picked one of the ugly- and quite frankly, phallic- tentacle-shaped blossoms, immediately turning and motioning to Dean. They started back at a brisk walk, as the forest began to darken around them. 

They didn’t speak again until they were nearly there, when Dean began to recognize their surroundings again. He tugged at the arm of Cas’s trench coat.

“What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me and Sam about your deal with the Empty?” 

The line of Cas’s shoulders went rigid. 

“Were you...you were just going to leave one day? Or...I don’t know, laugh at a joke or feel good about solving a case or-”

He couldn’t say it. He swallowed.

“...and disappear, leaving us wonderin’ where the hell you went? Let us think you left on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Why.”

Cas sighed, looking at him knowingly. “Because I knew you wouldn’t let me just accept it. I knew you’d try to find a way to stop it; it’s what you do. Because, Dean, I couldn’t bear to leave this world with my final waking thought being the pain you felt over my death. Especially when there’s nothing you can do. Not this time.”

“That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense, Cas.”

“You remember when you had me wipe Lisa and Ben’s memories?”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, closed it again. Point taken.

“Exactly like that.” Cas sighed, tiredly, like he was finally feeling every second of his inordinate amount of years. “Here we are.”

Dean eyed him closely. “You first.”

Cas rolled his eyes before grabbing Dean’s hand, but just as they were about to step through the portal, they were both yanked back with enough force to pull them to the ground. They both landed hard with pained grunts, and Dean was quick to his feet, his back to Cas as he squared up against their opponents. He could hear Cas getting to his feet behind him.

"Never thought we'd get another shot at you two."

Dean recognized the voice. They were Leviathan, all three of them, and Cas and Dean had spent a year fighting them off in Purgatory all those years ago. 

"Lox...didn't think you ugly bastards would still be living." Dean smirked, entirely more confident than he felt. Cas was close by, their knuckles occasionally brushing as they both surveyed their threats. Dean bristled. It'd be easier to feel brazen and cocky if he wasn't so goddamn worried. "You just won't be happy 'til we kill you, huh?"

"Well, now...it hasn't taken yet." Lox smiled a feral smile, his thick dreadlocks falling haphazardly around his face. 

The telltale metallic slide of Cas's blade down into his hand prickled the hairs on the back of Dean's neck, and he readied his own weapon. Lox grinned wider, and he and his two henchmen attacked.

Dean held Lox at bay with both hands, unable to see what was going on behind him with Cas, though he could hear him artfully swinging his blade. Occasionally one of the leviathans cried out, which Dean took as a good sign, even as he struggled against his own aggressor. 

"You're not making it out alive this time, Winchester," Lox growled, his hands making their way around Dean's neck, squeezing. Dean pulled an arm free and brought his elbow down hard on one of Lox's forearms, breaking his hold, and used the momentary unbalance to push him away, following up with a swift kick to the monster's stomach. Lox doubled over onto the ground, scrambling to quickly get back to his feet.

"Wouldn't be so sure," Dean responded breathlessly, his weapon in front of him defensively, ready for the next attack. Instead, another leviathan hit him from behind, knocking him to the ground, and the knife flew out of his reach. He heard another scream as his knees hit the forest floor and pain shot up his thighs. A body hit the ground with a thud, and while Dean didn't have the opportunity to look, he hoped to God it was any of them but Cas. 

After a brief struggle, Dean's pressed against leaves and dirt, the weight on his back was lifted completely and Dean jumped to his feet, immediately launching himself at Lox. He unsheathed his backup blade and plunged it into Lox's shoulder as they fell to the ground, the leviathan growling beneath him and clawing at the knife buried in his skin. Dean pressed his palm to the end of the handle, pressing it deeper as he stretched over Lox's head to reach for his Purgatory blade. He gritted his teeth as he moved back, sliding it toward him, and pushed himself to his feet. He raised the blade up and swung- effectively separating the leviathan's head from his body.

Breathing hard, he lowered the blade, only remembering the third and final monster when he heard the sounds of a struggle.

Cas was losing. He was pinned to the ground, barely holding the leviathan at bay, whose ridiculous Pacman-meets-Alien teeth snapped just inches from Cas's throat. Dean didn't waste time swinging the blade this time, either. The thing's head flew off and tumbled across the forest floor, leaves crackling in its wake. The body went limp on Cas's, the blood soaked through his clothes, drops coating his face and neck. 

"Looks like you lost a step since last time," Dean said with a grin, holding out a hand. Cas glared at him but took it, pushing the body off to the side. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his arm as he got to his feet.

"I'm losing my powers," Cas said bluntly, and until then Dean never realized before how much those powers really meant to Cas- not even after he'd admitted to Dean how often he'd kept trying to raise the issue, despite the indifference Dean seemed to display. How much he felt those powers defined who he was, and how little he felt he was worth without them. Not that either Sam or Dean cared if Cas had powers; after all, neither of them did.

Dean pressed his lips together and nudged Cas's elbow with his own. "You tried to tell me before and I didn't listen. And...fuck, I'm really sorry, Cas. I really am."

Cas didn't look at him as he brushed himself off, wiping the final smear of blood from his chin. Without another word, he tucked the blossom into his trench coat, grabbed Dean's hand, and they stepped through the portal together. They stumbled back into the comfort of the bunker and the portal crackled and snapped closed behind them. There was only silence now, the ambiance of the old librarian’s lights, the low buzz of the generator. Cas looked around, sighing again, and tossed the blossom onto one of the tables. 

Dean clicked his tongue. “I’m gonna go call Sam.”

“Dean, wait.”

Dean stopped and turned back to Cas, raising a brow.

Cas stood there for a moment, finally half shrugging. “What now?”

Dean stared at him, looked back to the hall, back to Cas again. His eyebrow ticked upward another hair and he clicked his tongue. “It’s late. Why don’t you just meet me in my room in ten? We’ll get at this thing in the morning.”

Cas faltered. “Your...room?”

Dean had already turned, but he paused, his shoe scuffing across the tile as he turned back to Cas again. “Yeah. I mean, you don’t sleep anyway, right? No use for a room with a bed.” With that, he headed down the hall, the sound of his shoes on the floor fading with each step. 

Cas stared after him, and as he heard Dean's voice down the hall filling Sam in on their run, blunt and authoritative, he began to smile.

Only seconds more passed before Cas felt the creeping cold seep into his bones, the hiss of ghost-like movement. A voice chuckled softly, darkly, from far away, the laugh growing louder as blackness swallowed the corners of his vision. 

“Hello, Castiel.”

 _Dean_ was the last complete thought Cas was able to form as nothingness took him.


End file.
